Magnum and the Dying Art of Darkroom Printing

A few years ago, I had the pleasure of spending some time with Pablo Inirio, master darkroom printer at Magnum Photos in New York. I was thinking about that interview recently as I heard the news of Kodak’s bankruptcy and pondered the precarious status of “old media” like books, film and silver gelatin prints.

As Magnum’s printer, Inirio gets to work with some of photography’s most iconic images. In his small darkroom, the prints lying casually around include Dennis Stock’s famous portrait of James Dean in Times Square (right) and a cigar-chewing Che Guevara shot by Rene Burri. Intricate squiggles and numbers are scrawled all over the prints, showing Inirio’s complex formulas for printing them. A few seconds of dodging here, some burning-in there. Will six seconds be enough to bring out some definition in the building behind Dean? Perhaps, depending on the temperature of the chemicals.

Of course, this kind of work is a dying art. Darkrooms everywhere have been closing as increasingly, photographers choose pixels and inkjets over film and silver gelatin. Over the last fifteen years, almost every photographer I’ve interviewed has waxed poetic about that “magical” experience of seeing an image develop in chemicals for the first time. You have to wonder whether today’s young photographers will rhapsodize as much about the first time they color-calibrated their monitors.

I was curious to see how the last few years of digital progress have affected things at Magnum, so I checked in with Inirio by phone this week. He was still there, bubbling with the good cheer that, along with his darkroom skills, have made him a favorite with Magnum photographers. In the three years since we met, he said, surprisingly little has changed at Magnum. He had to switch to Ilford paper when Agfa closed, and he hopes Kodak doesn’t take his stop bath away—but otherwise, things are the same. “Collectors and galleries still want prints on fiber paper—they just like the way it looks,” he said. He’s often called upon to print from current members’ film archives, and for the estates of various deceased members, like Dennis Stock and Henri Cartier-Bresson. The prints go to exhibitions, book publishers and private collectors. “I’m still pretty busy—in fact, I’m backed up,” he said with a laugh.

Magnum has been digitizing its archive, but so far, Inirio hasn’t been tempted to transfer his skills to the digital realm. “Digital prints have their own kind of look, and it’s fine, but fiber prints have such richness and depth,” he said. He thinks darkroom printing will always be with us—after all, he pointed out, “people are still doing daguerrotypes.”

Magnum’s archive represents some of modern history’s best and boldest photojournalism. Its photographers have been at the front lines for over six decades, ever since, in an effort to gain more rights for photographers, the flamboyant Robert Capa brought together an unlikely group of friends in 1947 to start a photographer-run collective. In 1947 alone, the small group delivered work on Gandhi’s assassination, the foundation of Israel and life in the Soviet Union at the start of the Cold War. Since then, Magnum has continued covering world history with passion and visual flair. Last week, members Alex Majoli and Paolo Pellegrin won prizes in the 2012 World Press Photo Contest, for an image of shouting protesters in Tahrir Square and a photo-essay on post-tsunami Japan, respectively.

As an organization, though, Magnum has often teetered on the edge of collapse—either from financial troubles or because it attracts strong personalities who spend a lot of time fighting. The story of the agency’s first fifty years is entertainingly told in Russell Miller’s Magnum: Fifty Years at the Front Line of History, published in 1997 to coincide with the agency’s half century. Miller does a great job of conveying the amazing talent and bravery of Magnum members while also dishing about the agency’s dysfunctional family dynamics. (One of my favorite quotes in the book comes from photographer Ferdinando Scianna, who snarls, “Yes, Magnum is a family. I hate my family.”) My review of the book for the San Francisco Chronicle is here.

Capa’s own memoir, Slightly Out of Focus, was originally published in 1947 and is now available as a Modern Library paperback. As you’d expect, it’s lively and irreverent. I like the way it begins, with the story of how, in 1942, Capa was mistaken for movie director Frank Capra by a ship’s captain while on his way to London to photograph the blitz.. Happy to oblige, Capa regaled the captain with made-up gossip about Hollywood and “Capra”s numerous affairs with leading ladies.

Capa’s larger-than-life personality, and his dramatic life story, were ripe for fictionalizing—and indeed, last week I stumbled on Waiting for Robert Capa, a 2011 Spanish novel that has just been translated into English. The novel tells the story of the love affair between Capa and Gerda Taro, a young photographer who was killed in action in the Spanish Civil War. It’s a story that was also lovingly told last year in The Mexican Suitcase, an exhibition at the International Center for Photography. Apparently director Michael Mann has picked up the film rights to Waiting for Robert Capa. I look forward to reading it and will review it here in the near future.

Like darkroom photography, Magnum itself is undergoing a paradigm shift. As media space for in-depth photojournalism decreases, photographers are looking elsewhere for venues for their work. Agencies like Magnum are having to get creative about projects, partnering with nonprofits and corporate sponsors. But still, Magnum survives… and it’s nice to think of Inirio toiling away in the Magnum darkroom, continuing a tradition that started in 1947 with the first Magnum office.

I disagree that it is getting “very difficult (and expensive)”. Shooting film and printing in the darkroom is no harder than it ever has been. And it is actually cheaper than it ever has been as well. I have two enlargers in my home darkroom, I paid $75 for the pair. Brand new I would have been looking at close to $2,000 and they aren’t even that old!

My husband Kurt Markus is in the middle of building his next darkroom here in Santa Fe. He pulled apart one of the two darkrooms in his studio in Montana
and has set it up down here. Kurt is very happy. While everyone is going digital Kurt is still printing the best photographs of his life. Both our sons Weston and Ian are photographers and they love to print their own photographs..

So true! I am bitterly upset that film labs are closing left and right, frequently because their owners complain they are not able to make a profit when they were never intended to make a profit, just contribute, as in the case of one hour labs that are part of lager entities like a grocery store.

Can’t speak for the darkroom exactly but I just bought a Polaroid Land 350 and a dozen or so boxes of (brand new) Fuji 100 and 3000 film and I am having a total blast! Always a curiosity to onlookers and at parties, ridiculously affordable and amazingly cool shots and it scans really well if you want to tweak and post. Maybe I’m going backwards but at the moment it’s a lot more fun than forward. I’ve got an SX70 on the way and several boxes of film from the “Impossible Project”. Long live film.

Enjoyed the article but I think that there will be something of a revival in traditional darkroom printing as a natural balance to the age of digital. The craft and artifact inherent in the traditional darkroom process will become I think particularly sort after in the Art Market….

I just want to note that there are still places where young people are learning traditional darkroom skills. Although many high schools are struggling to justify the cost of film programs, places like Youth in Focus in Seattle (youthinfocus.org), where I work, as well as a handful of similar programs elsewhere, are creating passionate young film photographers (as well as digital photographers) every day!

I was a student at YIF for 2 or so years and you and all that everyone does there helped me turn my life around and find something I truly loved and cared about. Still shooting film, though not as much as I’d like to but it’s something for myself I am trying to preserve so thank you for that :) it’s a beautiful gift and I hope darkroom never dies

Have to agree with you Barry. I published “Darkroom User” magazine for seven years back in the 1990s, but it was a labor of love (a pleasant one, mind you) although one I was passionate about having hand-processed more than 10,000 films during my darkroom days and undoubtedly a number at least two or three times that in sheets of paper during my 35 years of wet-darkroom work. I’ve been “numerique” for a decade in France through necessity, rather than choice, but I still miss the Zen-like silence when working under the red glow.

Just a few days ago I decided to re-publish as many articles that are still relevant having been originally published in the old Darkroom User magazine… they will probably all have to be my images and articles as certain writers I used back then would want paying again a decade or more later. So far I have put two articles up, on “Agfa Rodinal” and (this morning as it happens) “Bulk-film loading”. Click over to… http://darkroomuser.wordpress.com/ if you are interested as there will be many more darkroom articles to follow on a wide variety of subjects in the coming weeks ;~)

Mr Ansel Adams didn’t scratch a picture that way….
He used to wait for the right moment. (or even comeback and try it again)
And even not having the choice (surpluss) we have enjoyed concerning films, papers and chemistry… his negs and prints show us what means concerned!!!

Jose: Well, Ansel Adams did once famously remark that “the negative is the score; the print is the performance.” Although his negatives were amazingly well exposed I believe he did do a fair bit of manipulation in the darkroom too.

To not manipulate a neg in the darkroom would in itself be a crime – careless and lazy – there is no way a negative can lead to a perfect unmanipualted print each time. Dodging and burning are basic and necessary – As Sarah says below, “the negative is the score; the print is the performance”

An artist will naturally seek improvement and perfection. A straight print would never fulfil. Infact the few times I have had a “perfect print” I have felt cheated and unsatisfied – like I have missed something.

Interesting that you have such an opinion. I’ve personally seen Adams negs and I can assure you that, even though he was a great photographer, it was his printing skills that made his reputation. I doubt that there is such a think as a “straight” Adams print. He also created detailed notes about how to print each neg.

You’ve got to be kidding. Look at the variation and development of the series of over 1000 prints that Adams printed himself over several decades after he photographed “Moonrise, Hernandez, Mexico” in 1941. The prints considered definitive weren’t produced until the 1960s by which time Adams, in addition to the various dodging and burning “recipes” he had experimented with, had applied several chemical processes to the negative to darken the sky. He raised dodging and burning to a high art form in the middle 20th century.

the solitude of the darkroom was something i enjoyed and now sorely miss…..shooting,developing and printing were the holy trinity…..plus being in “the darkroom” with your honey could also be special but in the end its the finish product that counts not the means to that end

Ansel Adams has time to wait for the perfect light, which he knew how to use it. Photojournalism is on the fly. I konw both, and as an assistant spent two years in the darkroom. processing and printing, didnt love it at the time but until digital it was the best way to learn b&w printing. Would like to start it again, the equipment is in the attic getting dusty! Maybe some day.

Brilliant artcle, fantastic to read it and heartening to find people who feel the same as I head to my own darkroom to start printing for an exhibition in London. Please consider yourselves all invited – details on my website ;)

Check out the following book which has marked up prints like those on this blog showing exposure times for dodging and burning. Like all of you, I haven no intention of giving up either film or my b/w darkroom any time soon.

The marked up prints are quite interesting. When printing in the digital realm, the masks on adjustment layers look very much the same – many layers for many subtle, nuanced tweaks of the image.
I’ve read that W. Eugene Smith would make a copy negative of a ‘perfect’ print, then print that negative. With the layered file, that perfect print can be reproduced over and over, and even re-interpreted. I’ve seen several different versions of some of Ansel Adams’ iconic images, printed in surprisingly different ways.
Great discussion, and great article. Thanks for your hard work on this blog.
—
Gary O’Brien
Photographer
Tucson, AZ

Wonderful article. Mr Inirio should be respected in the darkroom world as a very rare and dedicated personality, who goes way above and beyond what’s normally achieved in a darkroom. Printing negatives that were exposed in less than ideal lighting conditions, often quickly and on the fly, without proper metering. It’s just incredibly difficult to make such negatives look that good! A few other printers come to mind; Sid Kaplan who printed for Henri Cartier-Bresson, or how about Gene Nokon who taught Yusuf Karsh a thing or two about f-stop printing? There’s a marvel in Toronto by the name of Bob Carnie, who is a really talented and amazing darkroom printer, but it’s a bit of a dying breed.
My hope is that articles such as this will spur an interest in the art of printing silver gelatin in a darkroom. There are lots of people shooting film these days, but not very many who do anything other than scanning that film and then work with them in the digital domain. Nothing wrong with that, but we need more printers to keep raw materials for production of silver gelatin papers viable and available.
If you’re curious about darkroom printing – find a way of doing it! It is tremendously rewarding, and one of those labors of love that keep getting better every time you do it.

Can anybody explain the printing notes? I can make out fractions but do these represent burning and dodging times? If so, how would you action all these adjustments when making a print?
I develop my own film and recently purchased all that I need for the dark room – but have nowhere in the house to set it all up :( I can’t wait to do my own printing!

I’m a hack compared to Mr. Inirio, but use print maps just like his in my darkroom when I print. You have to, because there’s no way to remember it.
Notes in the map could have to do with contrast grades as well as times for dodging and burning, although I’m doubtful Mr. Inirio used variable contrast papers when he made those prints.

It’s all about having a critical eye when you print. Tonal values are chosen carefully to support the content of the print, and making what’s important stand out while toning down what isn’t.
You have to remember that a lot of the negatives that someone who prints for Magnum uses are often exposed in less than ideal lighting, probably not metered perfectly (or at all) because it’s a matter of capturing a moment that will disappear quickly. You could even be dealing with push processed film, which is a printer’s worst nightmare to eke shadow detail out of. In short, many of the negatives are just incredibly difficult to print. If you have the time to set up lighting in a studio, or carefully meter a scene you’re photographing, a lot less darkroom gymnastics are required to reach desirable results. While you should always maintain a highly critical eye, and never settle for anything less than the very best you can achieve, what you see in the article above is pretty extreme by my experience.

My respect for printers such as Pablo Inirio, Gene Nokon, Sid Kaplan, Keith Taylor, Bob Carnie, etc grows as I accumulate more darkroom knowledge myself. It is nothing short of amazing what they can achieve, and as artists we should all aspire to their level, or perhaps even aspire to being better, to forward the art of darkroom printing, and safeguard it for future generations to enjoy.

I forgot to mention that often with difficult negatives there are lots of techniques employed to eke the very maximum out of them, such as flashing the paper, building masks, tweaking the paper developer to adjust print contrast in between individual paper grades. You can use techniques of diffusion for effect, and use burning- and dodging tools to flash just parts of the paper, etc etc etc. There is a lot to know about silver gelatin printing that most people don’t even know about (including myself).
If you’re truly interested in the mechanics, as well as the art of printing, I highly recommend Ralph Lambrecht’s book ‘Way Beyond Monochrome’. It is a fantastic piece of literature that discusses nearly every aspect of b&w printing.
I will also say that it is very hard to relate all of the text to real world results until you actually start printing in the darkroom. Hands on, get down to business and just start printing. Find a way of doing it, and experience the joy and magic of watching your efforts appear before your eyes in the developer tray.

Hi Jono, I’m not sure how Pablo does all of his burning and dodging on these prints during the exposure time. I do recall that he had a lot of handmade dodging tools of various sizes, and theoretically one could hold three or four of them at the same time. Even so, it must require an enormous amount of concentration to create a series of prints from these specs!

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… here is a reminder of the good old days … sometimes I miss them … the care free attitude and the luxury of time that came with it … on a good day I managed to print five final prints. Now I would not even dream to go back to a darkroom to print … mostly because I do feel differently for water so precious and time even more precious.

Building my new, with cheap used equipment, LARGE darkroom as fast as I can. Finally I can afford all the stuff I ever wanted! Just wait, as the idiots throw it all away, the inevitable comeback of analog will surprise the tossers.

A friend sent me this link in an email (as I still have my darkroom & love very much to print now & then… I’m not bad at it!)… after finally getting time to sit down & look properly at it I thought I would post my email reply to him here:

Looking at it now…. fascinating images, and glad that they can be enlarged. The notations on them are mind-boggling. Look at the nuances in Audrey Hepburn’s face… that’s getting right down to it. Funny, but I’m starting to think that achieving similar (at least half-way similar) is actually easier on a computer than in the darkroom! I start with the scanned Tiff, get it overall right in Camera Raw (just seems easier than in Photoshop), then in Photoshop itself I do the finer things with selections & layers & working on finer things like faces & so on. Costs money in the darkroom, and patience, which I find I don’t have a lot of anymore, and a general unwillingness to spend a whole day’s daylight in the dark. Doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy it now & then though. You know, not so long back I might’ve said the opposite, that I can’t do on the computer what I can in the darkroom…. but with time you learn how, like anything ;)))

Thanks for this, Paul. I think your points about the cost of darkroom printing and also the reluctance to give up daylight are very apt — also there is the environmental factor to consider with darkroom chemicals. But it sure was a lot more romantic than tapping on a keyboard!

I think the environmental aspects of darkroom use versus digital photography environmental foot print needs to be fact checked.
Do you know how much it pollutes to make a digital camera, printer, computer screen, and computers? They use chemicals that will kill you within minutes of exposure. And, cameras and equipment is obsolete about every two or three years, adding techno trash to an already insurmountable heap of it.

Chemicals used in photographic processes are, for the most part, benign in comparison to things like household cleaners and laundry detergent.

I am very grateful for this thread, because it highlights that the art of darkroom printing is actually still alive! And I, as a darkroom printer feel very lonely in this digital world. Can we keep the topic surrounding that, and not how easy it is to do the same thing on a computer? Please. I beg you. There is very little left to be happy about as a darkroom rat.

I hear you Sarah…. and I hear you too Thomas Bertilsson ;) Wasn’t really my intention to rave on about how easy it is. I can tell you this: as long as I have in my possession all the negatives I’ve made up til now, irrespective of whether or not I make any more in the future, I will ALWAYS maintain a facility in which to print them (and I should point out that my ‘darkroom’ is actually my kitchen, thoughtfully set up so that I can easily/safely/cleanly convert everything for printing cooking, which are in fact very similar activities don’t you know… not that I do much cooking).

Good point, Thomas (about the relative toxicity of darkroom chemicals, computer manufacturing chemicals and household cleaning fluids). Do you know if anyone has ever studied this? I believe you but it would be interesting to see a comparison study. When I’m less tired I’ll take a look online. But that’s a digression. For my part, I’m happy to keep this thread going as a discussion for darkroom printers. From the passionate responses it has engendered, and from the way the URL continues to be tweeted, forwarded and reblogged, I know there are many of you out there!

I still do this as my only way of making prints. My womb room has three enlargers, 10×8″ and 10×8″ DeVeres and 35mm Leitz. The wet side has a set of deep film dev tanks using D76d mixed in May 1985 and replenished ever since.

I am not John, obviously, but my approach is very similar to his (I think).

I don’t own a digital camera. The reason is that I just like darkroom work better. It makes me happy. Digital doesn’t. It’s entirely personal, so I don’t knock those that enjoy digital work flow. But it bores me to tears.

In the darkroom I can aptly focus on what I want to express, without distractions. The output is what I want my prints to look like, so for me it’s also a matter of ‘don’t fix what isn’t broken’, and just continue doing what I enjoy instead of forcing something that I do not enjoy. It really is as simple as that.

In the darkroom I’m happy. To watch it all come together in front of my eyes, by doing something tangible, is magic to me. It’s equally great every time. My negatives have been carefully exposed and processed so that they fit the tonality of my paper and paper developer. That takes a lot of the grief out of printing, because it really is a system. When all of the individual pieces click together like cogs on a wheel in a transmission line, it’s just beautiful and I feel like I’m in total control of the work flow. That gives me tremendous satisfaction.

Thanks for this, Thomas. It is interesting to me because I used to enjoy darkroom work a lot, and once the digital revolution happened, it took the fun out of photography for me. I’m slightly old-fashioned and technologically challenged, and these days I just take digital snaps of the kids (as artfully as possible, of course!) But you’ve inspired me to think that I should dust off the old analog camera and do some darkroom work again!

“You have to wonder whether today’s young photographers will rhapsodize as much about the first time they color-calibrated their monitors.”

Really? We all know this isn’t a good analogy. In fact, it’s a cheap shot. There is a place for both film and digital photography, and I certainly hope that film continues to be shot. But, “developing” digital images has only a small amount to do with monitor calibration. Optimizing your photos, and your vision, requires a solid understanding of the development process, be it film or digital.

Point taken, Don, and thanks for the feedback. It was a shorthand way of saying that there’s no direct equivalent of that slow emergence of a print in developing fluid, the process that so fondly remembered by the film generation. I hope you’ll check out the rest of the blog and continue reading — I have lots of interesting content lined up for the fall!

The problem is that whether we like it or not, film labs are closing left and right and there are fewer people doing their own printing. I love doing my own printing but I can’t help but wonder how long it will be possible to do so.

What’s fascinating also and very revealing about our change of practice is the importance given to the ‘Single Killer Shot’ over the overall quality of a series. Nowadays, most of us spend much less time editing a single image and end up showing a series of shots.
Look at the pics edited here, the man probably spent a whole day on getting ONE picture right. But these images here are definitely iconic. So iconic it hurts.

I don’t wish to sound negative (no pun intended), but how do you know how much time the printer spends on getting one print just right? You are assuming. As a printer for a place like Magnum, I would rather expect a rather copious volume of requests coming through, leaving little room to work for a whole day on a single negative, (but then again, I am assuming too).

I know many darkroom printers who work with batches. They make proof prints of many negatives, live with them for a while, mark them up, and then go into the darkroom to print work prints. Looking at those for a while, a final stint in the darkroom gives the final iteration. The volume can be very large, but it takes longer.
Then I know darkroom printers who go into the darkroom focusing on their most difficult negative/print. After they’re happy with that one, they’re properly in the groove, and can crank out the easier ones at a much faster rate.

I agree the pictures are iconic. The bloopers never made it public, though… :)

Thanks for this, Thomas. I don’t think Pablo Inirio is printing in batches. I spent some time with him, and he told me that for the most part, he’s making prints for exhibitions, private sales and book publications. When he prints from a dead photographer’s estate (Cartier-Bresson, for example), he examines an original print very closely to determine what the photographer’s intentions were with the print. I’m guessing that Magnum printers who want an edition of a print made might go elsewhere. Inirio’s darkroom is fairly small and specialized.

Film photography and the darkroom are good therapy … at least for me. I have used film since I was knee high to a grasshopper … well not really, but since jr. high anyway. I appreciate this article because I too am a darkroom printer. I strive for archival fibre prints that are acceptable to galleries and collectors. So I appreciate people who still admire and more importantly use film. We need to support the companies, i.e., Ilford, that offer the products.

Almost every Thursday night from September through July, I have a class of 6-10 students who meet. This is the Brookline (MA) Adult Education Creative Darkroom. We are one of the few (maybe only) public darkrooms still operating in the Boston area. All I can add is that the fine art of black and white printing is well and thriving in this group of highly creative individuals whose ages range from 20-somethings to 88 years. My students talk about the ‘magic’ of the darkroom and work with a lot of alternative processes and scour the planet for old cameras.
We participate in community arts festivals and we encounter so many people who don’t grasp the fact that there is film and paper and cameras that don’t do everything for you. And that one may have to ‘work’ to produce a print. Yes, film and paper are alive.

Ilford is opening a new black and white processing lab in California! http://www.ilfordlab-us.com/ Even though I work mostly with digital for convenience, I still much prefer film and working in the darkroom. And two Sierra College campuses (Rocklin and Grass Valley CA) still have darkrooms and teach students film and darkroom processes.

I don’t think darkroom prints are a dying art. In fact, my stepdaughter has just started a class in her high school on black and white film and darkroom printing. I’m setting my darkroom up as we speak. (had to tear it down to move to another state). So there is a new generation who may in fact enjoy it just as much as us old farts do.

Thanks, Chris. Your last statement may be true, and certainly, the number of people who’ve responded to this article shows that people care very much about darkroom printing. But because of the behavior of large industrial players like Kodak and Agfa (who can only survive if they dominate the market), I think the evidence suggests that although silver gelatin will survive, it will become an artistic/alternative process, along with the other alternative processes like collodion and tintype that are experiencing something of a revival. But survive it will, in some form. I wish you and your stepdaughter happy printing!

As an amateur photographer I can and do still print in the darkroom. It is not expensive for me and I am on a pension. I like the depth of my darkroom prints whatever that means. So do those who know my work.

I work in a professional darkroom making prints for fine-artists, hobbyists and the occasional retired magnum photog. I also have a small set up at home, it is only dead/dying because people are letting it. I have offered my facilities to tons of photog friends who claim ‘i miss film, i’m gonna do it again, can I use your darkroom?’ none have ever showed up to use it…

Thanks, Taylor, that’s interesting. I think the nostalgia factor is high, but as you say, there’s a difference between being nostalgic and actually getting back into the darkroom! However, if you look on the comments thread on this post, there are some encouraging stories of community darkrooms being started and enjoyed.

Today I had a guest in my new darkroom. He wanted to process his 11×14 B&W slides into 11×14 contact positive prints. At first I thought he was goofy, but the double reversal process works and is darn simple. I think I am going to do some in camera paper reverse positives very soon. Learned something new, in my new darkroom!

Thanks for reblogging, chr15cro055! Although we can (sadly) no longer talk to the Magnum founders and early members, at least some of them left memoirs and interviews. I also recommend the Russell Miller book I mentioned in the piece, Magnum: Fifty Years at the Frontline of History. Also possibly of interest is this book of Magnum contact sheets: http://www.amazon.com/Magnum-Contact-Sheets-Kristen-Lubben/dp/0500543992

So much lost knowledge, a lot of photo processing history is lost, from not sharing, secrets, too busy, we have forgotten much…at least now we are trying to document on the Internet. But I find photo forums are filled with dead links, no longer available images and confusion. Even eBay deletes the history of sales and images, losing much valuable info.

This is one of the most interesting articles I have read in a long time. It may very well squash the idea that SOOC images are best in today’s digital era when in fact the electronic darkroom is just as important to the quest for a great image and an amazing print as ever they have been. Maybe the skills needed to do this have changed somewhat from the wet darkroom skill, but they are nonetheless required. I shoot only RAW and mainly b/w and try to honour the processing skills of the past as much as is possible. Just looking through a collection of magnum books will inspire (or should) any budding photographer in the digital era to get it as good as they can, and even now I have just passed my 70th birthday, the more I can learn about the digital darkroom the better I like it.

I’m very happy that you still look at the final output as a print. My friends and I are a group of about 12 photographers from around the Twin Cities, Minnesota, and while most of us are very passionate darkroom printers, our only qualification for participating in our quarterly (or so) group shows, is to be submitting the very best prints we are able to make, whether made digitally or with darkroom means.
It is so nice to read a comment from a digital shooter that isn’t afraid of paying respect to the history of photography, and I wish more exchange between photographers could be based on respect, and discussion about the resulting photographs more than the process of how they were made. It is, after all, the pictures that are important.

Thank you for your reply! Firstly, whether a digital or a film shooter (and I was a film shooter long before I converted to digital) we share the same fantastic craft. I am an end product man, so I am not entrenched in any one method or way of getting the image. I just like the image full stop. And I like a well printed image that has taken a lot of patience and care to produce (OK I am partial to a good silver halide print on top quality rag for sure). But to get the vision interpreted in print, or even on a computer screen for that matter, it takes some thought, skill, and a good bit of time in the darkroom whether wet or dry. I have a dozen or so b/w prints around my house that were printed from digital at a pro lab and they look stunning I have to say. I now print in book format my yearly portfolio and work towards the best I can get from that media. Long live photography in its best light!

I have never been fortunate enough to shoot with film. I wont live to regret digital but after reading this very interesting article with responses, i think its time i look further into this subject matter. I feel somewhat out of my dept in this tread but i know that i have always found Black and White images much more interesting to look at. Thank you for educating me on another way forward.

Recently I went to a camera store that still sells film and darkroom materials. (I am currently in the process of setting up my own so as to venture back into black and white.) Stocks of chemicals and paper were dishearteningly low but when told that a school had only that morning bought up big on supplies for use in the students’ darkroom I couldn’t help but feel glad that there is a new generation of film shooters coming along. Film has had a rough time, but it certainly isn’t dead yet!

You’re right, Erik. Film will not die; it will simply become another alternative process, along with the likes of collodion and tintype and dye transfer. Good luck setting up your darkroom! I miss mine.

I was lucky enough to have attended one of the only schools in the UK with a big darkroom and all sorts of equipment, thanks to my incredible teacher. I’m so glad I got to have my first-picture-emerging-from-the-chemicals moment; all photographers should experience the darkroom at some point. I only wish darkrooms were more accessible, although I do, of course, understand the benefits of digital.

Reblogged this on Pictures and Prose and commented:
Love this, if you ever have the opportunity to experience a darkroom, take it! The scribbles all over these photographs remind me of both my own work, both literary and photographic! Never be afraid to scribble down your ideas – not only is it interesting for you to look back on but I’ve found so many second-hand books with someone else’s scribbles all over them and it makes them so much more valuable to me.

Happy to see that this thread is still going. I am finishing up another successful session of advanced black and white darkroom work at Brookline (Massachusett) Adult Ed. We use the High School darkroom and every session (4 a year) I have both new and returning students. There is always something new to learn and I am always heartened by the creativity and passion of my students for this beautiful art form. Sorry, Indiakarl, analog is not dead.

I used to have my own darkroom in Milan but now that I have moved to Melbourne, I kind of had to enrol to Uni to have access to their one.
There is no way I will ever stop shooting film and when possible, printing in darkroom…
If only I could afford a bigger place where to live, I would then have my darkroom setup again and perhaps start teaching young kids the art of photography (the real photography).

When the 3rd 4th 9th 13th and 15th place bestsellers in the photography category of Amazon’s online store are all Fuji Instax items, it seems about time journalists dropped the whole “film is a dying medium” thing…

Sarah-thanks very good blog BTW. I am actually trying to build my own darkroom (and I have also purchased a X 1 Pro:). So I shoot both. As a note – I actually get stopped all the time from young people asking about film.

P.No

January 13, 2015

After graduating from Brooks Institute in 1993, I didn’t spend much time in the darkroom. In looking back at my advertising career, it had been a hollow path for me chasing the $$$. I regret ever leaving the b&w darkroom.
I have recently repurchase a Leica M6 and am loving film again. Film doesn’t seem to be any more expensive as it was 20 years ago(relatively speaking), just not as plentiful in your local market.
Silver prints are in a league of their own, nothing digital compares.
Try craigslist for darkroom equipment. There’s a lot out there!

I loved reading this, my 15 yr daughter is starting her A level photography course this September and they have just made a new darkroom and studio. So jealous and glad she will be learning both sides of Photography. It seems to be having a revival!